Selick’s stop-motion/CGI adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s cautionary kid-lit novel is decidedly nightmarish in the way it takes the ordinary and twists it just to the point that it needles your nerves, which is infinitely more disturbing (but also wickedly fun) than broad-stroke monstrosities. From a skeletal hand made of sewing needles to Highland terriers transformed into glowing-eye bats, it’s all very eerie, but also strangely beautiful. The use of 3-D is striking in its painterly emphasis of depth, which makes the imagery both more realistic and more surreal. It’s hard to imagine the story being told in anything other than the film’s seamless combination of tactile and digital media, with its unrelenting mixture of the fantastical and familiar. (Starplex 16, Waco, TX)